Assassin's Expose Weakness nerf

So in the last patch the Assassin's Expose Weakness debuff was changed completely. If you're unfamiliar with the skill, it used to provide a flat damage bonus on top of every damage instance dealt by the Rogue. This was especially good due to the Assassin's high number of DoT abilities and poison self buffs. In the patch however, It has been changed to a debuff that causes the enemy to take 4% increased damage from the Rogue.

Single target damage was always the Assassin's specialty, again due to their high number of debuffs and DoT effects. Other souls such as Bladedancer have less ST dps and are more complex to play (than Assassin), but to compensate for this they have a lot more utility in both their defensive and offensive abilities. They have several AoE abilities and survivability buffs, as well as the useful option of switching targets without worrying about damage losses due to the fact that all their damage bonuses come from self-buffs rather than debuffs on the enemy.

Assassin however is far simpler to play because they are very pigeonholed into what situations they are able to take advantage of. They do have numerous tools at their disposal to allow this, but they essentially have to initiate from stealth onto a single target and unload massive dps on a squishy target and kill them before they take much damage themselves. Outside of this they are squishy, have low mobility, difficulty catching and sticking to enemies, weakness to cc effects, are unable to use their most damaging abilities and buffs as well as needing to put themselves in range of any and all ranged dps in order to walk up to an enemy and fight. Their stealth is what allows a squishy melee character to get in range without mobility steroids. It is reasonable that a squishy damage dealer with low utility only and only capable of dealing melee range damage would have a very high damage output to compensate for their lack of utiliy/usefulness in other scenarios. Assassin SHOULD have the highest ST dps of any Rogue soul.

With the new Expose Weakness however, I have noticed a dps drop of well over 20%, possibly even 30% at times. as the Assassin's primary debuff, this was what gave you a lot of your damage output, as well as what made target swapping a very bad choice. Now even by looking at the damage buff alone it is not obvious that it is a major damage buff at all, let alone one of a soul's defining abilities. To compare this to other damage buffs, let's have a look at Ranger. The skill Ace Shot applies a debuff that causes the target to take 8% more damage from the Rogue (and 40% from the pet). This skill does not have a cooldown, and gives double the effects of the new Expose Weakness, even ignoring the pet component. It is certainly a good skill, but you do not lose much damage when switching targets as the buff is small and can be instantly reapplied. Expose Weakness is on a 20 second cd and provides half the damage of ace shot and less than a quarter of the damage of the old version. This is too much of a nerf, and needs to be either changed back to its old mechanic or buffed significantly. The only advantage to picking Assassin was that you had more damage than any other soul, but now there are other souls that do more damage and don't sacrifice utility for now non-existent damage.

TL;DR the Expose Weakness nerf removed roughly 75% of its damage buff. This is too much of a nerf and needs to be reverted to its old mechanic with lower or unchanged values or buffed to a higher percentage of damage increase. As a core Assassin skill it simply cannot be this bad. Assassin needs to remain the highest ST dps soul the rogue has, and it now no longer holds that position.

There are a few points I think are worth mentioning that don't really apply directly to the ability so I'll say them here. A lot of these apply mainly to PvP.

I am aware that Assassins have several control abilities at their disposal. Many other classes also have ways to place others in undesirable situations such as pulls, taunts and stuns. Cc effects are not unique to Assassin. They simply have enough tools to do their job when played correctly.

Assassins can use Leaping Strike to close gaps and Debilitating Poison to slow enemies. These are only available for high level players, and do not compensate for the other weaknesses of Assassins.

Assassins can apply Expose Weakness by using finishers on enemies once they hit level 36. This is quite a good skill to pick up and makes switching targets less punishing, but you still lose the bonus of attacking them from stealth. Jagged Strike is essential for damage output as well as the +15% damage boost you get from stealth attacks with Cloak and Dagger. Assassin's lose an inordinate amount of damage if they cannot initiate from stealth, and this more than Expose weakness makes them single target damage dealers. The points listed above still apply with regards to the Assassin's lack of utility outside ideal situations and their inability to swap targets effectively, as they need to restealth before each attack.

If you are complaining about Assassins being overpowered in PvP there are several points to make. Assassins are not so good in PvP that every rogue plays them. this in itself means that there are enough downsides for some people to want to play another dps role. Assassins are intended to be able to pick off and burst down squishy targets like mages and other rogues. If they cannot do this then are are essentially useless. Anyone who says they are easymode has most likely been killed repeatedly by them because they have no idea how to play against it. The class Is all about decision making rather than mechanical skill, and in many situations they will most likely die to aoe or get focused and as such must hold off on attacking. Mages have massive magical damage that they can deal from a range and have low armour, Assassins can deal high physical damage up close but cannot hope to fight a mage that knows he is there while unstealthed from a distance. These are trade-offs of the classes. The armour types in the game are there for a reason, and mages have their own set of strengths to go with their vulnerabilities. Going full squishy dps mage by yourself while there are Assassins are about is not smart, regardless of how you look at it. Every class/role has their own playstyle in PvP and it is up to you to change your build or skill usage to gain an advantage over them. If you keep getting killed repeatedly by something, maybe it is because you are performing some action that allows them to gain an advantage, rather than them being a "loser noob noskill easymode class". I hate getting pulled into a group of enemies by warriors and getting instagibbed, but the ability is not overpowered. I also dislike getting burst almost instantly from range by mages I can hardly see, but there are certainly things I can do to avoid it. By learning how to counter you enemies you have nothing to lose and everything to gain, and will become a better player because of it.

TL;DR2: Don't rage because Assassins kill you in PvP. learn to counter them and become a better player. They have weaknesses too.

I am so sorry for the text wall, just read the TL;DRs to get the gist of it. On a side note, I play Assassin as my main soul for PvE and the damage nerf here is hideously crippling. I am also not trying to make out that Assassin is underpowered/overpowered by this post, but rather to point out what the soul needs to but cannot do after losing 20% of its damage output.

If there are any other points or thoughts you have I'd be happy to discuss them.

So in the last patch the Assassin's Expose Weakness debuff was changed completely. If you're unfamiliar with the skill, it used to provide a flat damage bonus on top of every damage instance dealt by the Rogue. This was especially good due to the Assassin's high number of DoT abilities and poison self buffs. In the patch however, It has been changed to a debuff that causes the enemy to take 4% increased damage from the Rogue.

Single target damage was always the Assassin's specialty, again due to their high number of debuffs and DoT effects. Other souls such as Bladedancer have less ST dps and are more complex to play (than Assassin), but to compensate for this they have a lot more utility in both their defensive and offensive abilities. They have several AoE abilities and survivability buffs, as well as the useful option of switching targets without worrying about damage losses due to the fact that all their damage bonuses come from self-buffs rather than debuffs on the enemy.

Assassin however is far simpler to play because they are very pigeonholed into what situations they are able to take advantage of. They do have numerous tools at their disposal to allow this, but they essentially have to initiate from stealth onto a single target and unload massive dps on a squishy target and kill them before they take much damage themselves. Outside of this they are squishy, have low mobility, difficulty catching and sticking to enemies, weakness to cc effects, are unable to use their most damaging abilities and buffs as well as needing to put themselves in range of any and all ranged dps in order to walk up to an enemy and fight. Their stealth is what allows a squishy melee character to get in range without mobility steroids. It is reasonable that a squishy damage dealer with low utility only and only capable of dealing melee range damage would have a very high damage output to compensate for their lack of utiliy/usefulness in other scenarios. Assassin SHOULD have the highest ST dps of any Rogue soul.

With the new Expose Weakness however, I have noticed a dps drop of well over 20%, possibly even 30% at times. as the Assassin's primary debuff, this was what gave you a lot of your damage output, as well as what made target swapping a very bad choice. Now even by looking at the damage buff alone it is not obvious that it is a major damage buff at all, let alone one of a soul's defining abilities. To compare this to other damage buffs, let's have a look at Ranger. The skill Ace Shot applies a debuff that causes the target to take 8% more damage from the Rogue (and 40% from the pet). This skill does not have a cooldown, and gives double the effects of the new Expose Weakness, even ignoring the pet component. It is certainly a good skill, but you do not lose much damage when switching targets as the buff is small and can be instantly reapplied. Expose Weakness is on a 20 second cd and provides half the damage of ace shot and less than a quarter of the damage of the old version. This is too much of a nerf, and needs to be either changed back to its old mechanic or buffed significantly. The only advantage to picking Assassin was that you had more damage than any other soul, but now there are other souls that do more damage and don't sacrifice utility for now non-existent damage.

TL;DR the Expose Weakness nerf removed roughly 75% of its damage buff. This is too much of a nerf and needs to be reverted to its old mechanic with lower or unchanged values or buffed to a higher percentage of damage increase. As a core Assassin skill it simply cannot be this bad. Assassin needs to remain the highest ST dps soul the rogue has, and it now no longer holds that position.

There are a few points I think are worth mentioning that don't really apply directly to the ability so I'll say them here. A lot of these apply mainly to PvP.

I am aware that Assassins have several control abilities at their disposal. Many other classes also have ways to place others in undesirable situations such as pulls, taunts and stuns. Cc effects are not unique to Assassin. They simply have enough tools to do their job when played correctly.

Assassins can use Leaping Strike to close gaps and Debilitating Poison to slow enemies. These are only available for high level players, and do not compensate for the other weaknesses of Assassins.

Assassins can apply Expose Weakness by using finishers on enemies once they hit level 36. This is quite a good skill to pick up and makes switching targets less punishing, but you still lose the bonus of attacking them from stealth. Jagged Strike is essential for damage output as well as the +15% damage boost you get from stealth attacks with Cloak and Dagger. Assassin's lose an inordinate amount of damage if they cannot initiate from stealth, and this more than Expose weakness makes them single target damage dealers. The points listed above still apply with regards to the Assassin's lack of utility outside ideal situations and their inability to swap targets effectively, as they need to restealth before each attack.

If you are complaining about Assassins being overpowered in PvP there are several points to make. Assassins are not so good in PvP that every rogue plays them. this in itself means that there are enough downsides for some people to want to play another dps role. Assassins are intended to be able to pick off and burst down squishy targets like mages and other rogues. If they cannot do this then are are essentially useless. Anyone who says they are easymode has most likely been killed repeatedly by them because they have no idea how to play against it. The class Is all about decision making rather than mechanical skill, and in many situations they will most likely die to aoe or get focused and as such must hold off on attacking. Mages have massive magical damage that they can deal from a range and have low armour, Assassins can deal high physical damage up close but cannot hope to fight a mage that knows he is there while unstealthed from a distance. These are trade-offs of the classes. The armour types in the game are there for a reason, and mages have their own set of strengths to go with their vulnerabilities. Going full squishy dps mage by yourself while there are Assassins are about is not smart, regardless of how you look at it. Every class/role has their own playstyle in PvP and it is up to you to change your build or skill usage to gain an advantage over them. If you keep getting killed repeatedly by something, maybe it is because you are performing some action that allows them to gain an advantage, rather than them being a "loser noob noskill easymode class". I hate getting pulled into a group of enemies by warriors and getting instagibbed, but the ability is not overpowered. I also dislike getting burst almost instantly from range by mages I can hardly see, but there are certainly things I can do to avoid it. By learning how to counter you enemies you have nothing to lose and everything to gain, and will become a better player because of it.

TL;DR2: Don't rage because Assassins kill you in PvP. learn to counter them and become a better player. They have weaknesses too.

I am so sorry for the text wall, just read the TL;DRs to get the gist of it. On a side note, I play Assassin as my main soul for PvE and the damage nerf here is hideously crippling. I am also not trying to make out that Assassin is underpowered/overpowered by this post, but rather to point out what the soul needs to but cannot do after losing 20% of its damage output.

If there are any other points or thoughts you have I'd be happy to discuss them.

You're an idiot, this is a buff for Rogues, before it only effected Physical Damaging Abilities, now it increases ALL ROGUE DAMAGING ABILITIES which is clearly a BUFF.

You're an idiot, this is a buff for Rogues, before it only effected Physical Damaging Abilities, now it increases ALL ROGUE DAMAGING ABILITIES which is clearly a BUFF.

It used to buff physical damage a lot more than 4% so it's not clearly a buff. Mostly it's a pvp nerf because the old expose weakness was not mitigated by valor. For pve the dps it provides is about the same as it used to be, probably a tiny nerf (100 dps or so), but can't test exact numbers retroactively and now it scales with crit power and crit too instead of just AP.

But I have parsed in raid and have a small collective database.
The expose weakness change about breaking even compare to old one.

My data shows its a small gain raid dps wise, due to much higher burn during PM and lining up raid buffs. All poisons are hitting and critting higher than ever, make sure you line up PM with raid buffs, and no matter whatever you do, do NOT macro PM into your spammer. And physical damage wise, the damage difference is within the tenth/low hundreds.

You're an idiot, this is a buff for Rogues, before it only effected Physical Damaging Abilities, now it increases ALL ROGUE DAMAGING ABILITIES which is clearly a BUFF.

if you do much less damage per gcd because of the "change" in pvp, i don't see how you can call it a buff. it was a nerf, there is no other way to spin it.

the 4% thing is weird to me because it's such a negligible amount that the skill is now next to useless.

it's most noticeable with savage strike and swift shot, which we lost about 300 damage per hit on. it's not a big deal and does not effect my spec but it certainly does hurt hybrid sin/rs specs which is pretty stupid to me, because now if you don't go 61sin you are going to have pretty crap damage in pvp.

if you do much less damage per gcd because of the "change" in pvp, i don't see how you can call it a buff. it was a nerf, there is no other way to spin it.

the 4% thing is weird to me because it's such a negligible amount that the skill is now next to useless.

it's most noticeable with savage strike and swift shot, which we lost about 300 damage per hit on. it's not a big deal and does not effect my spec but it certainly does hurt hybrid sin/rs specs which is pretty stupid to me, because now if you don't go 61sin you are going to have pretty crap damage in pvp.

You realize the 300 damage proc from EW was unmitigated by valor? And you know even Auto Attacks procs that amount? And if you do, you dont think it's probably too much? 300 unmitigated damage is like 1200+ damage before valor, and this applied to all physical attacks bleeds as well as auto attack... you see the point now?

Also EW's 4% isnt small at all, it certainly is "big enough" in PvE and caused Sin to have a slightly dps gain... not a loss.

this isn't how it worked in pvp. EW never added 1200 damage to anything, just a flat ~300-350 damage per physical attack.

You know to achieve 300 post-valor damage you need 1200 damage pre-valor? And you had no problem exploiting that? (guess you dont).

And +300 damage to auto attack in PvP is like tripling auto attack damage in PvP. Do you even know why it was nerfed?

Another example your Savage strike hits for 5000 damage in PvE, and hits for 1200 damage in PvP due to valor. EW adds 350 to that 1200. making it hits for 1500+ damage, which is a 25%+ buff to your main spammable attack, 200% buff to auto attacks, and so on...

i don't see how this is relevant to what i said and you're just parroting what i originally said, that EW added 300-350 damage per physical attack in pvp.

The point is you said 4% is so small... what do you expect? 50% boost so Sin can pull 40k ST dps (or 60k on Goloch) in PvE?

You are qqing that it nerfed Sin in PvP, I agreed its a nerf in PvP, I disagree 4% multiplicative boost is small.

Eg Inquisitor's 5% multiplicative buff from Rage Blight made all the difference and made them from being top ranged DPS ingame to top ranged dps ingame thats also beating some melee specs.

4% to 25k dps is 1k. And in PvE people would kill for 1k more dps.

As for EW in PvP, yes its a nerf, as theres no other calling that can apply a offgcd buff that also dont mark you as aggressive, castable from stealth and does not break it and gives 20% (Savage Strikes) to 300% (Autoattacks) damage bonus to your physical attacks depending on what you do.

Theres no other class in game with a mechanics in PvP that work like that outside few item/trinket procs.

Besides, Assassins killed Inquisitors in 1v1 in PvP. And you wonder why EW is nerfed in PvP?

Sometimes people fail to realize that a percentage buff depends on how much damage you're doing in the first place.

If you're attack does 200, an extra 4% may not seem like much. But when it does 2000, your 4% of that becomes a much bigger number. The more damage you do, the better your Expose Weakness works for you.

You know to achieve 300 post-valor damage you need 1200 damage pre-valor? And you had no problem exploiting that? (guess you dont).

Don't use words such as exploiting when you clearly do not understand their meaning.
Furthermore, your nonsensical argument is just that, nonsensical.
It was unmitigated damage period.
It wasn't like anything else, it was simply unmitigated damage.
Ecru is hardly QQing by anything, you, as usual, are jumping down the throats of anyone that says anything remotely disagreeable.